1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to vacuum cleaners and, more particularly, to a multifunctional vacuum cleaning appliance which has a lower housing part provided with an electrically driven brush, to which lower housing part there is allocated a further housing part in which the operational parts for vacuum generation, dust filtering, and dust collection are incorporated, and in which cleaning appliance the lower housing part can be coupled to the suction circuit of the further housing part.
2. Description of the Related Art
A vacuum cleaning appliance of that generic type is known from European patent EP 0 388 676. There, the lower housing part and the further housing part, which is designed as a filter cassette for a filter bag and which contains a fan motor, are connected permanently to one another. A movable suction hose is attached to the upper end of the further housing part which can be connected in a detachable manner to a connector on the lower housing part. It is therefore possible for the suction hose to be removed from the connection piece and carrying out special additional vacuum cleaning work. For this purpose, the suction hose can also be coupled to a handheld suction tube which is fitted in a housing recess of the further housing part and which can be taken out of the recess. The prior art cleaning appliance can thus be used not only for vacuum sweeping, but also for normal suction operation. However, in this case, the radius of action is severely limited by the relatively short length of the suction hose and of the handheld tube unless the cleaning appliance is moved. If vacuuming has to be done in an area lying outside this radius of action, the entire cleaning appliance must be correspondingly moved in order to be able to perform vacuuming in that entire area.